


Truthie

by redtoblack



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, The Obliviousness is Strong With These Two, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28640202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtoblack/pseuds/redtoblack
Summary: It's...maybe not as normal of a day as Quentin thinks it is, when he finally meets up with Eliot. Question is, what's he gonna do about it?-- or, feelings are talked about. With some help, of course.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 22
Kudos: 77
Collections: Peaches and Plums Stockings 2020





	Truthie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ice_Rain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ice_Rain/gifts).



> Here are some soft & squishy boys who are trying very hard :D
> 
> Thank you TheAudity for betaing!

It was a normal day, if Quentin was choosing to ignore the fact that this New Normal had very suddenly and inexplicably started just a matter of weeks ago. He’d made a new friend — though he cringed at the wording, which sounded an awful lot like something Julia would say — and they’d been hanging out every day. Sometimes for hours on end, sometimes for just a quick hello, but always something, and Eliot — _El,_ now — wasn’t tired of him yet. Or at least it didn’t seem like he was. Like when Quentin got sucked into the vortex of his textbooks and hadn’t come by at his usual time, and Eliot would inevitably make his way downstairs to check on him. Warmth hummed through Quentin at the thought, off-setting the bite of an especially chilly evening of an especially chilly autumn. Annoying, considering the fact that Brakebills was supposed to have, like, magical thermostat for the seasons — but at least the buildings were kept at a constant nice temperature.

So, it being a normal day, Quentin was hurrying across the Sea on his way to Eliot’s room. The strap of his messenger bag kept slipping off, but he waited stubbornly until the fourth time to give in and sling it across his chest instead. Only now his hands were cold without the need to hold onto the worn leather strap, so he breathed into his palms, cupped to his mouth, willing away the shivers. It worked better over time, or maybe that was just because he was drawing closer to the Cottage, and the cold didn’t bother him as much.

He hopped up the steps on toes that would be red under his socks, but the doorknob was comfortably warm in his hand, and cozy air rushed out to greet him through the open door. Stomping the chill out of his feet, he haphazardly scuffed dampness from the last rain off of his sneakers. This was their usual time for Thursdays, since El only had morning classes — not that he actually went to them — and Quentin’s last session got out at five. He’d be waiting for Quentin in his room, and if a tingling heat swept through Quentin on his way up the stairs, well. It was obviously from the exercise.

One, two, three, four quick knocks on Eliot’s door (ignoring, as always, the heavy iron knocker, which Eliot had reshaped into a dick that — while surprisingly tasteful — Quentin refused to use on principle) got a reply even more muffled than the thick walnut door should have caused. Quentin pushed it open carefully, stepping through the familiar swish of El’s wards.

And it — maybe wasn’t such a normal day after all, because usually Eliot would be all languidly stretched out somewhere with a book in hand, but instead his long form was curled up on the bed, facing the window with his back to the door. Through the small panel of warded glass, the clouds were swirling low and heavy, still deciding whether they were done raining for the day. Quentin loved rainy days like this, with the sky cast a cool, undulating blue, but Eliot had a sour look on his face when Quentin came around the side of the bed to sit with him.

“Hey El, you alright?” he asked, trying to sound casual and probably failing impressively.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Eliot glanced over briefly, the pensive look not wavering. Quentin let it sit for a moment. Would he — ?

Nope, okay. Not gonna hit the gas without a push. “You kinda don’t seem fine?” Quentin tried, catching his friend’s eye. Eliot chewed on his lip — evaluating; Quentin attempted a reassuring smile - and he sat up, facing Quentin with his legs crossed and elbows resting on his knees. Still too hunched-over to be considered a normal position for him, but an improvement.

“It is fine,” Eliot started, holding up a finger preemptively. “Just something someone said. I’m letting it bother me too much, that’s all.”

Quentin frowned. “What was it? And who? Or — if you don’t wanna talk about it that’s fine, but I could like, tell Julia to beat them up for you and she’d totally do it.”

At that, Eliot’s expression finally lifted into a smile, and he settled back onto the heels of his hands. “While I would truly love to see that happen, I think there will be more deserving opportunities than this. As for the talking…” he looked back to the window, clearing his throat uncomfortably. Quentin rolled _Hey, it’s fine, you don’t have to_ around in his head, but just before he let it go, Eliot asked the clouds outside, “Why did you want to be friends with me?”

“I — sorry?”

“Not like —” he reached up to gesture vaguely, which turned into a rub at his temple and a drag down his cheek, “not like I don’t love that we’re friends, but I want to know why. For you. Humor me.”

Well, Quentin had been asked weirder things. Even if this was kinda out of the blue. “I mean, it’s not like it’s, um, complicated. After Julia, you were the first one to just treat me like a person? Even though you already had Margo, and your parties and your magic and shit, you wanted me to stay, and it made me wanna stay. And then I, you know, I like spending time with you, and you — seem to like spending time with me, so. Like. Here we are.” He shrugged.

A smile flickered and faltered over Eliot’s lips. His fingers were tracing a swirl on the pattern of his bedspread. Around and around and around. “Yeah, here we are,” he sighed.

“Okay, are you mad? At me for something?” Quentin checked, because, what the hell.

“Now why would I be mad at you?” Eliot said, still looking away.

“I dunno, maybe because you’re kind of implying that you don’t even know why we’re friends, and you still haven’t actually told me what’s wrong, and I’m not sure what other conclusion I should be drawing here.” He stood, to leave or pace or — something, but Eliot called him back.

“Q —”

“What?”

Eliot’s gaze glanced off Quentin, settling somewhere over his left shoulder. “Some idiot said that I don’t care about my friends and I use them for entertainment without giving back and they only stick around because they feel bad for how fucked up I am.” He said it all at once, curling in on himself again. And Quentin could see it now, the weight holding his shoulders down, the restlessness in his long fingers where they twined in his lap, the way his focus was entirely on Quentin even as he angled himself away.

He sat back down. “El, you know that’s —”

“Yeah, I do. Like I said, I don’t know why this is getting under my skin so goddamn bad,” he muttered, then clapped his hands together and straightened his back. It looked too much like a puppet getting pulled upright for the frown to leave Quentin’s face, but Eliot was on a mission, already standing and pulling on his jacket on the way to the door. “You know what? That’s enough of that maudlin bullshit. A good smoke and I’ll forget all about it.” The door was already open by the time he paused, just long enough to ask, “Care to join me outside? I’d hate to undo all the work my poor little diffuser has done by having to dispel smoke in here.”

Down the three flights of steps, out the back door, and later to dinner and back, Quentin let it drop. Resisted every urge to comment on the shadow lingering in Eliot’s widened eyes and too-bright laugh. But the images circulated in his head that night, to the rhythm of the rain beating down outside. And there had to be _something,_ because clearly Eliot was going to try and ignore the worry into submission, like that ever worked. So Quentin would help, he could help, couldn’t he?

\-- _(the next day)_

Stepping back through the whorls and dips of portal magic, Quentin had to hurry. It was Friday, so there’d be a party starting soon in the Cottage. If he didn’t catch Eliot soon, he’d have to wait until at least four AM.

The dirt paths of the Sea squelched under his shoes, sending tiny mud splatters up to his ankles. Each step bumped the strap of his bag against his chest and jostled the weight in his jacket pocket.

The door shut quietly, a well-loved enchantment hushing the way Quentin had slammed it behind him in his haste. He kicked off his shoes while checking to make sure Eliot hadn’t come downstairs yet, and used the banister to haul himself up the stairs with minimal danger from his fuzzy socks on polished wood steps.

He’d left immediately after his last class of the day, getting through the nearest Brooklyn portal and back in record time, and still he arrived panting outside Eliot’s door just as it opened from the inside. Quentin pushed him back over the threshold with a hand on his shoulder, glossing over his startled noise with a “Hi, Eliot, just a minute.”

Eliot gave him a couple seconds of grace before holding his hands up in an expectant _What the fuck?_ gesture. Quentin nodded at him, still catching his breath, and headed off the question with, “Sorry,” followed shortly by, “Hi.”

“Hi Quentin,” Eliot said, sarcastically casual. “Look, I know we know exactly what the other is thinking at all times, but —”

“Sit down a minute,” Quentin interrupted, lungs back online.

“Why?” Eliot asked slowly, expression sobering into concern, but he slid his desk chair around and took a seat.

Quentin rummaged in his breast pocket for the answer, handing Eliot the tiny brown glass bottle. His brows creased even further as he read the label.

“It’s truth serum,” Quentin confirmed. Seemed like the kind of thing he should acknowledge out loud.

Not that it seemed to comfort Eliot at all. “Uh-huh,” he said, handing the bottle back with just as much wariness.

“Just, um. So you know,” Quentin said, because he’d find out the rest soon enough, and unscrewed the cap to drop a single drop on his tongue before Eliot could grab the bottle from him. He succeeded a moment later, looking very alarmed as he screwed the cap back on tight and set it down out of Quentin’s reach.

It felt — fine, really, after a moment of wooziness, a quickly fading ring in his ears. He shivered as the feeling passed.

“Q, what the fuck? Are you okay?” He had his hands on Quentin’s shoulders, steadying. Quentin left them there.

“Well, you know, in a manner of speaking, um, yes. ‘Okay’ is a pretty relative term, honestly, and, you know, things have been pretty crazy for me lately, and I’ve never done well with change, but uh there have been good things going on too, so maybe if you average it out then yeah, I’m okay. And today’s been pretty okay, actually —”

Eliot’s hand clamped over his mouth, stopping the waterfall of thoughts that had come tumbling out. He removed it gingerly when it looked like Quentin wasn’t going to try and continue.

“Thanks,” he said, breathing out slowly. It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly, the truth magic. It was more that it felt unfamiliar, something foreign inside his mind that was pressing different buttons than usual, making him want to share more of himself, make truths known. Actually, it felt a lot like Josh’s new experimental strain, and Quentin spared a moment to wonder if truth serum was derived from magical marijuana. Or if maybe Josh had just invented a new kind of truth serum.

“Sorry,” Eliot said. “I wasn’t thinking. But — what the hell, I mean, why — ugh. Okay.” He turned in a frustrated circle, steepling his fingers against his downturned lips. “First. What am I allowed to ask you?”

“Anything,” Quentin answered immediately, then blinked and stretched his neck, trying to feel his way around the magic’s steering force, be a little more thoughtful about this. “I don’t actually _have_ to answer, I just can’t lie. If I don’t want to answer, then I can say that, and it’ll be a truthful response.”

“Are you sure?”

Quentin raised his eyebrows, pointed at the bottle on Eliot’s desk. “ _Truth serum._ I said it, so I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Eliot said. He spread his arms and let them drop, exasperated. “Quentin, why the fuck did you just walk into my room and take truth serum?”

He waited to feel the magic’s encouraging prod, like a poke in the shoulder reminding him to be good, and went the direction it pushed him.

“I walked in here because I wanted to see you, and walking is like, the easiest method of entering a room, so it seemed like the best way to go about it. And I took truth serum because I want you to know that I’m telling the absolute truth. After yesterday, I could tell that shit was still bothering you, and I wanna help, but um. What I said then, didn’t help. So then I thought, what could I say that would definitely tell El, like, how I feel about him as a friend, and have him know it was true, and it was like, um, _lightbulb,_ you know?”

“O-kay,” Eliot said, crossing his arms. “So you — what exactly do you think I want you to say?”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point. The point is what I want to say to you, because I get that this is like, dumb or whatever, because it’s just something some asshole said, but also — it’s not dumb. This isn’t something I want you to ever think you have to worry about, with me.”

He moved to sit on the bed, waiting for Eliot to silently match him in his chair, feeling the magic build at the base of his skull, not trying to hold it back. That was the whole point, right? To be totally honest?

“You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. The top spot is probably Julia’s, but you’re like, a close second, and Julia’s kind of superhuman so you shouldn’t worry about that. So what if some dipshit who is definitely going to get wrecked when I sic Julia on them thinks otherwise? They don’t know you. They don’t see you, they don’t see how much you care, how good you are. Because you are _good,_ El, you’re a good friend and a good person. I don’t stick around because I _feel bad_ for you, like, holy shit, everyday I see you and it’s like, I feel lucky, and — and _proud,_ to stand next to you, you’re — you’re supportive and funny and loyal and really hot and like, yeah, fucked up and also kind of a dick, but I think — that just makes us match? And it’s a good thing, El, it’s such a good thing, you’re like, my favorite person.”

A couple of heaving breaths, but he wasn’t done, he could feel the magic asking him for one more thing. One more truth, and Quentin — could keep his mouth shut, swallow it down where it was safe in a box on a shelf, but — he didn’t want to. It wanted to be set _free._ As soon as the words took shape, box off the shelf — he opened the lid.

“But I — guess that’s not the full answer to your question, because what you asked me is, why do I want to be your friend. And I don’t, not really. I uh, wanna be more than friends. If you want to.”

And there was a lightness to him, then. The magic wreathing throughout his muscles, playing among his ribs. Telling him _Well done._

Eliot was staring at him. Crease between his brows, tiny part between his lips. Processing, probably, which like, made sense — after all, he only asked for (then unasked, then gotten anyway) reassurance on his status as a friend, and what he’d gotten — 

Well, what _had_ he gotten?

A, uh — confession. Is what that had sounded like. Felt like, coming out of Quentin’s mouth.

A confession of feelings. Of an inescapably romantic nature.

Which, by the way. How long had Quentin had those?

It took a moment, but a trickle of memories turned into a flood, and maybe the serum worked internally too, an invisible hand opening an invisible valve and revealing the truth of things. Hidden, not so well as it was, in so many cherished moments, blushes and grins, tears and hugs, words and hums, and Quentin sat back a little heavier on the mattress.

Oh. Shit. He was head-over-fuzzy-socked-feet for Eliot and hadn’t noticed?

Seemed like Eliot hadn’t noticed either, from the way he was leaning to rest against the seat-back, thoughtful, biting at a thumbnail — 

“Oh hey, stop that —” Quentin said, reaching over to bat his hand away, as he’d been doing since Eliot gave permission to help curb the habit. He let his hand get knocked to the side, looking to Quentin in surprise, and it was, _hm._ It was getting a little uncomfortable that he hadn’t said anything yet.

But the corners of Eliot’s lips were turning up into a smile, which turned into a grin, until Eliot looked away and wet his lips like he was trying not to make it too obvious. He had a really nice profile, Quentin noted automatically, and was mildly concerned in retrospect that he hadn’t noticed his feelings sooner.

“So,” Eliot drawled, finally breaking the silence. “‘Really hot,’ huh?”

“Oh, shut up, you knew that already. I’m not blind.”

“I did, it’s true,” Eliot admitted smugly, his smile softening. “But I guess it’s my turn now. You only took one drop of the serum, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Eliot reached behind him on the desk, and when his hands reappeared it was with a dropperful of truth serum to place a single drop on his tongue.

“What are you doing?” Quentin asked, as Eliot leaned over in his chair, breathing through the initial shivers.

“If we’re being exact, I’m sitting in my chair in my room and talking to you while you’re sitting on my bed, and I am not only speaking but speaking truthfully, which is honestly scaring the shit out of me. But I don’t think that’s the answer you were looking for, and I don’t think you asked the right question. A better question is _why_ did I take the truth serum, actually that’s a _great_ question, this stuff works _fast,_ ” he said, blinking as he caught up to his words.

“Helps if you talk slower,” Quentin offered.

Eliot nodded and shifted so he was perched on the edge of the bed next to Quentin. “The point is. I’m meeting you in the middle, here,” he said, taking one of Quentin’s hands carefully. “I really...appreciate you.” The words were quiet, like he was only halfway sure he was going to say them by the time they came out. “You and Margo, you’re my favorite people, and Margo and I haven’t been anything close to ‘just friends’ in a long time, and I would.” He swallowed, and took a moment to bring his legs up to fold under him, grip firm on Quentin’s hand. “I’d love to have that with you. Not the same as with Margo, obviously, but to be something more in our own way. You’re, you’re good, and true, and. You make me want to be braver. Like this. I can be here if you — I _want_ to be here. If you can lead the way.”

By the end of it, his face was open, so open, more than Quentin had ever seen, ever been _allowed_ to see. Like a geode with a crack running clean through its shell, edges sharp and guarded, inside vibrant, radiant. Beautiful. He wondered if this was part of that “something more,” if this was a place only Margo was allowed to visit and Eliot was choosing to open the door, to give him a key.

At some point one of them had interlaced their fingers. Eliot lifted them to press to his lips, smoothing a thumb over the ridge of Quentin’s knuckles, and um. His hand was. Large. Quentin caught himself staring, and wondered if he could blame the truth serum for that, making him unable to shift his attention from where his focus truly lay. When he shook it off and looked back up, it was to find Eliot’s eyes already on him, expression having gentled into something more trusting than helpless, more hopeful than desperate.

Quentin’s eyes burned quietly, like if he tried, there could be tears. He was not about to add that to everything going on today, so he laughed instead. “God, what pair we make, huh?”

“If by that you mean we’re bound to be the top power couple on campus, then yes,” Eliot said haughtily, but Quentin could hear the lightness in it.

A distantly loud cheer sounded suddenly from the bottom floor, along with the rolling bass of EDM, startling both of them. Eliot upped his sound wards with a few quick gestures, settling the sounds into a barely-there murmur. “Sounds like they’re getting started without me,” he said. “Do you wanna go?”

Quentin made a face. “Actually I do, but that’s not a good idea right now.”

“Why?”

“The serum. Uh. Lasts for twelve hours.”

Eliot returned his apologetic grimace blankly. “I’ve truthied myself for twelve hours,” he repeated, deadpan.

“Yep.” And he _tried_ not to laugh, he did, just — not that hard.

“Well,” Eliot said, looking awfully put-upon, “I guess if you are going to be stuck somewhere for twelve hours or else risk revealing your deepest secrets,” and the look shifted to a grin, as he leaned forward to put both hands on either side of Quentin’s crossed legs, “there are worse places for it than my bed.”

“Careful, El, or a guy might think you’re inviting him to spend the night,” Quentin responded, leaning forward himself so he and Eliot were nose to nose.

“I am if you’re gonna say yes.”

“Well, in that case.” Quentin thought about teasing, but the truth magic had a very firm response to that. Not allowed to utter falsehoods, right — this was gonna be interesting. “Yes.”


End file.
